Tomorrow, you think, I’ll live my dreams. Tomorrow, you think, it will be easier and I will have more time. You analyze and allow your inner skeptic and inner critic to convince us that inaction is safer than action. You allow them to convince you that you can have reward without risk.

You forget the wonder, the hope, and the joy you once knew as child. Have you lost your belief? Are you too smart to believe now? Are you too cynical to recognize your dreams knocking?

I don’t believe any of that about you – not for a second! I know the miracle you are and the force of nature you can become for your dreams, if only you would. The “Comfort Zone” is aptly named. It is comfortable, but you will never find your dreams there.

Today do at least one thing that stretches you. Today believe in just one thing that your eyes can’t see yet. Today trust in one thing that your mind can’t prove yet. That’s a dream – unseen, unknown, unprovable until belief and action bring it to life.

Your dreams are waiting for you just on the other side of your willingness to act.

The Universe provides for me in direct proportion to my gratitude! Today I am rich!

My dog Mia and I just went for an amazing walk on this beautiful early Autumn afternoon. We still have Indian Summer going here right now with temperatures in the 80s, but the shift in season is still clear. Everywhere you look leaves, walnuts, hedge apples are strewn across the ground. With every gust of wind, you can hear more of summer’s fruit and life falling to the ground in death. The squirrels are hyperactive right now gathering the ground’s bounty for the winter they instinctively know is ahead. Seasonal changes represent more than climatic transition. They also alter our psychology.

Our ancestors truly recognized and appreciated the meaning of the seasons. They celebrated and revered the cycles of the seasons.

The life that comes to be in the Spring and flourishes in Summer begins to dwindle in the Fall. Today’s post is a poem I wrote in 1993. I hope it captures the magic and meaning of the transition to Fall.

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Psychology of Seasons

A sun-drenched sky
on windy autumn day;
out across open fields
passing clouds make shadow play.

Silent beauty in multi-hues,
but ominous in a sense;
for though today be delightful
darkness soon gains precedence.

Shortly days will end too soon
as the leaves of autumn blow.
The gods withhold their aid
to the lifeforms down below.

A chill permeates the air
and death is all around.
Evidenced by dying trees:
their leaves spread on the ground.

Depression need not be our course;
all things must come to pass.
Death is an integral part of life;
perennial as fields of grass.

For very soon rebirth takes place
and all springs back to life.
To our hearts the glow returns,
bringing end to stress and strife.

Given time we come to find
and perhaps appreciate
the coming of darkness and death
who’s end gives cause to celebrate.

Copyright Ray Davis 1993, 1997

Follow your bliss! Experience your bliss! Become your bliss!

Ray

Ray Davis is the Founder of The Affirmation Spot and focuses on empowering minds to think positively, achieve goals, and live dreams. He is author of the ebook The Power to Be You and the forthcoming The Power to Be You 2: 1001 Power Thoughts for Daily Life.

Many people see losing or a loss as a very negative thing. Like anything else, losing is all in how you look at it. A well-studied loss can be every bit as valuable in our journey as a victory. I’m not saying that losing is more fun than winning or that winning isn’t valuable. Clearly, we all want to win.

The truth is that most winners had to experience losing before they ever succeeded. So what if you chose to look at your losses in a slightly different light? A loss might be seen as Lessons and Obstacles on your way to Stunning Successes.

L – Lessons: Losing nearly always provides some lessons and some clues on how to improve. If you pay attention to the things that contributed to the loss, you can apply those lessons to future situations. Given time, you find the winning combination.

O – Obstacles – Losses are clearly obstacles. After all, your goal was to win or succeed. However, an obstacle might challenge you to improve or increase your determination to succeed. Used as mental and emotional leverage, a good obstacle can propel you to future victories.

S – Stunning – Losing can get you down and make you feel unworthy. In that dark moment of loss, remember to see what a stunning miracle you are. You are a diamond in the rough slowly being polished into something very special.

S – Successes – Success is that moment of break through when the journey of loss has been transformed into victory. The lessons, obstacles, and seeing how stunning you are kept you on track to enjoy the sweet taste of success.

So you see a loss is never loss. It’s an opportunity, an invitation to a journey of self-discovery, stretching yourself, and new achievement.

Follow your bliss! Experience your bliss! Become your bliss!

Ray

Ray Davis is the Founder of The Affirmation Spot and focuses on empowering minds to think positively, achieve goals, and live dreams. He is author of the ebook The Power to Be You and the forthcoming The Power to Be You 2: 1001 Power Thoughts for Daily Life.

Like this:

My thoughts, my words, my actions really do create my world. That is why I think great thoughts, I say great words, and I take great actions.

Today’s article is a prayer I wrote back in 1993. I was at a very low moment in my life. On a particularly depressing day, this prayer suddenly emerged into my thinking. I felt compelled to pick up a pen and paper and write it down. It just seemed to gush out of me.The whole process took less than 10 minutes. For me, this prayer is a reminder that even the darkest moments of our lives contain within them the seeds of our healing.

I call it Prayer of Affirmation because, as you will see, the prayer is full of affirmations for the person praying it and for our world. May it bring something meaningful to your day.

I ask that I might be an instrument of peace in the world today. May I take care to think only thoughts that lead to a positive world for myself and for others. Help me to bear in mind the effect my thoughts have on the world that I come to experience. May I join with other compassionate souls to lend my thoughts and efforts to creating a better tomorrow for us all.

I am taking action to make the world a better place in every I affect it today. May I find peace and healing for myself as I work to be part of the solution in the world.

Grant me the strength within to love all living things and to make a positive impact on every soul I encounter today. May I attract positive people and circumstances to me that I may be more effective in my undertakings. May no one be too important nor to unimportant to greet with a kind word.

I seek the strength to live completely in love; releasing all my fears. I grant forgiveness to myself for all I hold against myself and for all I hold against another. May I be a tool of healing in the world.

I ask for the fortitude to be the embodiment of selfless harmony to whatever extent I am able today. I will be generous with my time, my resources and myself to the best of my ability without resentment or reluctance. For I know that what I give others I give to myself as well.

I seek happiness, peace, and freedom from suffering today. As such, I wish it for all beings as well. I am thankful for all that I have been granted. I am thankful for the beauty and harmony that exists all around me, if only I am willing to see it.

Finally, I seek a patient acceptance as events unfold in my life. Help me to see the big picture and not get bogged down by unimportant details. I understand that all I experience is chosen by me at some level for my benefit. Thus, I seek to understand, to learn, and to open myself to new possibilities.

Amen

Follow your bliss! Experience your bliss! Become your bliss!

Ray

Ray Davis is the Founder of The Affirmation Spot and focuses on empowering minds to think positively, achieve goals, and live dreams. He is author of the ebook The Power to Be You and the forthcoming The Power to Be You 2: 1001 Power Thoughts for Daily Life.

I am a unique and worthy person. I require no more justification than that to be who I am.

Being Who You Are

Everyone has an opinion on who you should be. Your mother, your co-workers, your spouse, the church, the government, your friends; they all are constantly trying to mold you into their vision of who they think you should be. Obviously, there are times when it is wise to listen to sound advice.

By and large, however, defining who you are is your right and your responsibility. Giving up that right to other people’s expectations is disempowering and leads to unhappiness.

Starting today take back your right to be who you are. You are fully capable and fully prepared to create your own vision of you. It is your “divine right” as a human being to make those decisions for yourself.

The opinions will still come – fast and furious – but you’ll be too busy enjoying the real you to care.

Today’s Affirmation:Life Affirmation: Today I contribute my unique and irreplaceable spark to the great bonfire of life.

Today’s entry is a multi-paragraph affirmation that captures the essence of a dream I had several years ago. May it inspire hope and remembrance in all who read it today. Remembrance that the world we live in is a choice not a prison sentence. We can have a world rooted in peace and driven by the potential extant in each of us, if that is world we expect and demand.

If we continue accept less, then that is the reality we will continue to experience.

This affirmation calls on us to expect more of ourselves, each other, and our leaders. It reminds us that a new and better day is right here ready for us to awaken to it. Some have. Some are. Some will. Some are fighting to hold on to the old world. Which are you?

The sun is rising; the clouds have passed away. And in the minds of at least a few, a greater consciousness has arisen. Tradition is no more. There is only awareness: an awareness of radiant possibilities and transcendent hopes for a world about to be born.

A world in which our fondest dreams shall come to pass. Where the greatest potentiality of humanity is realized:that each member of the human family will awaken to the inner light that opens one’s heart and frees one’s mind to look across culture, race, gender, religion and vast distance and see oneself.

Be of good cheer, o patient ones, for this new day dawns; a day of wonder and hope. A day, when filled with joy, all people shall attain their full potential. Long has been the night of toil and pain. Too long have brothers and sisters lived according to their fear of each other rather than their love for each other. But no more, the blinders have come off.

Finally and forever the Human Race will stand in the radiance of the truths that have lived within each of us all along. Truths that can no longer be ignored or distorted. The truth of our UNITY and our place in this planet’s web of life and in the greater cosmos beyond.